Generation X is dead. It has come to mean anyone aged 13 to 55 years old.
William Gibson.
Hailed by some critics as an accurate account of the ‘malaise of the mall-raised’, Generation X: Tales for an accelerated generation was the debut novel of now major Canadian fiction writer Douglas Coupland (Girlfriend in a coma, Microserfs, Shampoo planet, All families are psychotic, Hey Nostradamus!).
The book’s initial rejection in Canada was more to do with the square Canadian literary establishment than the buying public. The book spoke, in Coupland’s own words, ‘…for myself, not for a generation.’ However, the massive response to the book and what it ropes in only goes to show that there are a lot of people connected with the work.
Demographically, the term Generation X was intended to include the population born after the peak of the post-World war II baby boom, until 1960s. Coupland own definition of the term was that it defined a generation of those born between 1960 and 1965. This was a generation that, although deemed part of the baby boomers, felt no connection to them and the cultural icons of the same. The X was symbolic of the namelessness of this generation who felt dwarfed by the Boomer generation and yet were all too aware of their existence as a separate group.
The book, consisting of brief anecdotes portrays the economically weak but emotionally strong lives of a group of friends. Andy, Claire and Dag, all of them ‘twentysomethings’ quit their “pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause” in their hometowns and move to California’s Mojave Desert, adrift and away from an increasingly technological, materialistic and commercialized society. Here, the three musketeers recall the American culture and try to find some meaning in their lives. They have rituals of story-telling to keep each other connected, boozing for the obvious reasons, and working McJobs, one of the book’s many neologisms that translates as; “a low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one.”
Andy is the narrator of the book and works with Dag at a bar. Their ritual of narrating gets them to create disturbing yet modern fables of love and death in the bleak world of mall culture, historical overdosing, plastic surgery, nuclear wastage and the like. However, these fables are more than leisure activity, they are portraits of the Generation X’s longing for something better and the real realization of little hope in a world where the only career options they have are in the service sector and the rest is overshadowed by commerce. The tone of the book appears to be of satire but reading between the lines would disclose the sad irony of an entire generation of fanatically independent individuals who have everything in life but life itself.
The book mirrored the generation quite well and went on to popularize the term further as more and more readers, journalists, critics and society as a whole took notice of this very existing section that they had forgotten. It got a new wave of transgressional literature rolling that gave birth to the writing of Irvine Welsh and Chuck Palanhiuk. It also popularized several neologisms that are very truthful yet concise sandwiches of Coupland’s personal demography. You could go through them here. These, along with slogans and cartoons, act as footnotes in the book and are notes that illustrate where the feet of members of the Generation X really stand.
The book’s initial rejection in Canada was more to do with the square Canadian literary establishment than the buying public. The book spoke, in Coupland’s own words, ‘…for myself, not for a generation.’ However, the massive response to the book and what it ropes in only goes to show that there are a lot of people connected with the work.
Demographically, the term Generation X was intended to include the population born after the peak of the post-World war II baby boom, until 1960s. Coupland own definition of the term was that it defined a generation of those born between 1960 and 1965. This was a generation that, although deemed part of the baby boomers, felt no connection to them and the cultural icons of the same. The X was symbolic of the namelessness of this generation who felt dwarfed by the Boomer generation and yet were all too aware of their existence as a separate group.
The book, consisting of brief anecdotes portrays the economically weak but emotionally strong lives of a group of friends. Andy, Claire and Dag, all of them ‘twentysomethings’ quit their “pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause” in their hometowns and move to California’s Mojave Desert, adrift and away from an increasingly technological, materialistic and commercialized society. Here, the three musketeers recall the American culture and try to find some meaning in their lives. They have rituals of story-telling to keep each other connected, boozing for the obvious reasons, and working McJobs, one of the book’s many neologisms that translates as; “a low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one.”
Andy is the narrator of the book and works with Dag at a bar. Their ritual of narrating gets them to create disturbing yet modern fables of love and death in the bleak world of mall culture, historical overdosing, plastic surgery, nuclear wastage and the like. However, these fables are more than leisure activity, they are portraits of the Generation X’s longing for something better and the real realization of little hope in a world where the only career options they have are in the service sector and the rest is overshadowed by commerce. The tone of the book appears to be of satire but reading between the lines would disclose the sad irony of an entire generation of fanatically independent individuals who have everything in life but life itself.
The book mirrored the generation quite well and went on to popularize the term further as more and more readers, journalists, critics and society as a whole took notice of this very existing section that they had forgotten. It got a new wave of transgressional literature rolling that gave birth to the writing of Irvine Welsh and Chuck Palanhiuk. It also popularized several neologisms that are very truthful yet concise sandwiches of Coupland’s personal demography. You could go through them here. These, along with slogans and cartoons, act as footnotes in the book and are notes that illustrate where the feet of members of the Generation X really stand.
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